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RACIAL GOOD WILL 



ADDRESSES 
BY ROBERT R. MOTON 

PRINCIPAL-BLECT OF 
TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 



ETiss 

.61 



REPRINTED FROM THE "SOUTHERN WORKMAN" 

BY THE HAMPTON INSTITUTE PRESS 

1916 






It- noi'i 




r()iu:rt russa moton 



RAGE DEVELOPMENT * 

AMONG the most highly developed races we observe 
certain dominant characteristics, certain very essen- 
tial elements of character by which they have so influ- 
enced mankind and helped the world that they were en- 
abled to write their names indelibly in history. 

Your education, your observation, your occupation, 
have brought you into close touch and into personal and 
vital relations with the fundamental problems of life. 
We may call it the trust problem, the labor problem, the 
Indian problem, or perhaps the Negro problem. I like to 
call it the "Human Race Problem." 

The dawn of history breaks upon the world at strife, 
a universal conflict of man at war with his brother. The 
very face of the earth has been dyed in blood and its 
surface whitened with human bones in an endeavor to 
establish a harmonious and helpful adjustment between 
man and man. There can be no interest more funda- 
mental or of greater concern to the human family than the 
proper adjustment of man's relations to his brother. 

You and I belong to an undeveloped, backward race 
that is rarely for its own sake taken into account in the 
adjustment of man's relation to man, but is considered 
largely with reference to the impression which it makes 
upon the dominant Anglo-Saxon. The Negro's very 
existence is itself somewhat satellitious, and secondary 
only, to the great white orb around which he revolves. 
If by chance any light does appear in the black man's 
sphere of operations, it is usually assumed that it is re- 



'Address delirered at Taskegee Commencemeat, May 19l2 



4 RACIAL GOOD WILL 

black is generally projected against the white and usually 
to the disadvantage and embarrassment of the former. 
It becomes very easy, therefore, to see in our minds and 
hearts what is so apparent in our faces, "darkness there 
and nothing more." 

But you must keep in mind that the Negro is a tenth 
part of a great cosmopolitan commonwealth; he is a part 
of a nation to which God has given many very intricate 
problems to work out. Who knows but that this nation 
is God's great laboratory which is being used by the Cre- 
ator to show the rest of the world, what it does not seem 
thoroughly to understand, that it is possible for all God's 
people, even the two most extreme types, the black and 
the white, to live together harmoniously and helpfully. 

PROBLEM OF ADJUSTMENT 

The question which the American nation must face, 
and which the Negro as a part of the nation should so- 
berly and dispassionately consider, is the mutual, social, 
civic, and industrial adjustment upon common ground of 
two races, differing widely in characteristics and diverse 
in physical peculiarities, but alike suspicious and alike 
jealous, and alike more or less biased and prejudiced 
each toward the other. Without doubt the physical pe- 
culiarities of the Negro, which are perhaps the most 
superficial of all the distinctions, are nevertheless the 
most difficult of adjustment. While I do not believe that 
a man's color is ever a disadvantage to him, he is very 
likely to find it an inconvenience sometimes, in some 
places. 

We might as well be perfectly frank and perfectly 
honest with ourselves; it is not an easy task to adjust the 
relations of ten millions of people, who, while they may 
fleeted from his association with his white brother. The 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 5 

be mature in passion and perhaps in prejudice, are yet 
to a large extent children in judgment and in experience, 
to a race of people, not only mature in civilization, but the 
principles of whose government were based upon more 
or less mature judgment and experience at the beginning 
of this nation. And when we take into account also 
the wide ethnic differences in the two races that are here 
brought together, the problem becomes one of the gravest 
intricacy that has ever taxed human wisdom and human 
patience for solution. This situation makes it necessary 
for the Negro as a race to grasp firmly two or three fun- 
damental elements — race consciousness, a high moral 
ideal, and intelligent industry. 

RACE CONSCIOUSNESS 

The Negro must play essentially the primary part in 
the solution of this problem. Since his emancipation he 
has conclusively demonstrated to most people that he 
possesses the same faculties and susceptibilities as the 
rest of human mankind; this is the greatest victory the 
race has achieved during its years of freedom. Having 
demonstrated that his faculties and susceptibilities are 
capable of the highest development, it must be true of the 
black race, as it has been true of other races, that it must 
go through the same processes and work out the same 
problems in about the same way as other races have 
done. 

We can and we have profited very much by the ex- 
amples of progressive races. This is a wonderful ad- 
vantage and we have not been slow to grasp it. But we 
must remember that we are subject to the same natural 
factors in the solution of this problem, and that it cannot 
be solved without considering these factors. The Negro 



O RACIAL GOOD WILL 

must first of all have a conscientious pride and absolute 
faith and belief in himself. He must not unduly depre- 
ciate race distinctions and allow himself to think that be- 
cause out of one blood God created all nations of the 
earth, brotherhood is already an accomplished reality. 
Let us not deceive ourselves, blighted as we are with a 
heritage of moral leprosy from our past history and hard 
pressed as we are in the economic world by foreign immi- 
grants and by native prejudice ; our one surest haven of 
refuge is in ourselves ; our one safest means of advance is 
our belief and implicit trust in our own ability and 
worth. No race that despises itself, that laughs at and 
ridicules itself, that wishes to God it were anything else 
but itself, can ever be a great people. There is no power 
under heaven that can stop the onward march of ten 
millions of earnest, honest, inspired, God-fearing, race- 
loving, and united people. 



HIGH MORAL IDEAL 

With a strong race consciousness and reasonable pru- 
dence, a people with a low, vacillating and uncertain 
moral ideal may, for a time, be able to stem the tide of 
outraged virtue, but this is merely transitory. Ultimate 
destruction and ruin follow absolutely in the wake of 
moral degeneracy ; this all history shows, this experience 
teaches. God visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the 
children unto the third and fourth generation. "The 
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 

Not long ago I stood in the city of Rome amid its 
ruined foundations, crumbling walls, falling aqueducts, 
ancient palaces and amphitheatres, today mere relics of 
ancient history. One is struck with wonder and amaze- 
ment at the magnificent civilization which that people was 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 



able to evolve. It does not seem possible that the Roman 
people, who could so perfect society in its organic and 
civic relations and leave to the world the organic princi- 
ples which must always lie at the base of all subsequent 
social development, it does not seem possible that such a 
people should so decay as to leave hardly a vestige of its 
original stock, or that such cities as the Romans erected 
should so fall as to leave scarcely one stone upon another. 
Neither does it seem credible that a people who could so 
work out in its philosophical aspect man's relation to the 
eternal mystery, and come as near a perfect solution as is 
perhaps possible for the human mind to reach, that a 
people who could give to the world such literature, such 
art, such ideals of physical and intellectual beauty, as did 
the Greeks, could so utterly perish from the face of the 
earth; yet this is the case, not only with Rome and 
Greece, but with a score or more of nations which were 
once masters of the world. The Greeks, Romans, Per- 
sians, Egyptians, and even God's chosen people, allowed 
corruption and vice to so dwarf their moral sense that 
there was, according to the universal law of civilization, 
nothing left for them but death and destruction. 

It is no reproach to the Negro to say that his history 
and environment in this country have well-nigh placed 
him at the bottom of the moral scale. This must be re- 
medied if the Negro is ever to reach the full status of civil- 
ized manhood and womanhood. It must come through 
the united efforts of the educated among us, united 
not for spoils, not to disgrace religion with immoral 
practices, nor yet to merely protest and pass resolutions. 
No one can beat us solving the race problem by reso- 
lutions. Educated Negroes a thousand miles away from 
Alabama have been kind enough to settle every question 
and solve every problem affecting the race, by beautiful 



8 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 



resolutions which are seldom read outside the immediate 
community and often affect no one, not even the people 
who pass them. We must unite to stop the ravages of 
disease among our people ; unite to keep black boys from 
idleness, vice, gambling, and crime ; unite to guard the 
purity of black womanhood, and, I might add, black man- 
hood also. It is not enough to simply protest that ninety- 
five out of every hundred Negroes are orderly and law- 
abiding. The ninety-five must be banded together to re- 
strain and suppress the vicious five. 

Though it is sad to relate, there is a widening chasm 
between the educated Negro and his less fortunate 
brother. This may be natural but it is nevertheless very 
disastrous. This chasm must be bridged by more practi- 
cal sympathy and a more friendly and vital personal 
contact. The people must be impressed with the idea 
that a high moral character is absolutely essential to the 
highest development of every race, white quite as much 
as black. There is no creature so low and contemptible 
as he who does not seek first the approval of his own 
conscience and his God, for, after all, how poor is human 
recognition when you and your God are aware of your 
inward integrity of soul. If the Negro will keep clean 
hands and a pure heart, he can stand up before all the 
world and say, "Doubtless Thou, O Lord, art our Father, 
though Abraham be ignorant of us and Israel acknowl- 
edge us not." 

INTELLIGENT INDUSTRY 

Slavery taught the Negro many things for which he 
should be profoundly thankful— the Christian religion, 
the English language, and, in a measure, civilization, and 
these have placed him a thousand years ahead of his 
African ancestors. 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 



Slavery taught the Negro to work by rule and rote 
but not by principle and method. It did not and, per- 
haps, could not teach him to love and respect labor, 
but left him, on the contrary, with the idea that manual 
industry is a thing to be despised and gotten rid of, if 
possible ; that to work with one's hands is a badge of in- 
feriority. A tropical climate is not conducive to the de- 
velopment of practical energy. Add to the Negro's 
natural tendency his unfortunate heritage from slavery 
and we see at once that the race needs especially to be 
rooted and grounded in the underlying scientific principles 
of concrete things. The time when the world bowed be- 
fore mere abstract, impractical knowledge has well-nigh 
passed ; the demand of this age and hour is not so much 
what a man knows (though the world respects and reveres 
knowledge and always will, I hope.) What the world 
wants to know is what a man can do and how well he 
can do it. 

We must not be misled by high-sounding phrases as 
to the kind of education the race should receive, but we 
should remember that the education of a people should 
be conditioned upon their capacity, social environment, 
and the probable life which they will lead in the immedi- 
ate future. We fully realize that the ignorant must be 
taught, the poor must have the gospel, and the vicious 
must be restrained, but we also realize that these do not 
strike the "bedrock" of a permanent, lasting citizenship. 

If the Negro will add his proportionate contribution 
to the economic aspect of the world's civilization, it must 
be done through intelligent, well-directed, conscientious, 
skilled industry. The primary sources of wealth are agri- 
culture, mining, manufacturing, and commerce. These 
are the lines along which the thoughtful energy of the 
black race must be directed. I mean by agriculture, 



lO RACIAL GOOD WILL 

farming — the raising of corn, cotton, peas, and potatoes^ 
pigs, chickens, horses, and cows. 

Land may be bought practically anywhere in the 
South almost at our own price. Twenty years hence, with 
the rapidly developing Southern country and the stren- 
uous efforts to fill it up with foreign immigrants, it will be 
difficult if not impossible for us to buy land. Don't get 
the idea that because land is cheap today it will always 
remain cheap. Don't be misled either with the notion 
that because work is plentiful for the colored man, that it 
will always be plentiful. God gave the children of Israel 
the "Land of Canaan" but what a life and death struggle 
they had had to take possession of it and hold on to it! 
God has given to the Negro here in this Southern country 
two of the most fundamental necessities in his develop- 
ment — land and labor. If you don't possess this land and 
hold this labor, God will tell you, as He has often told 
other races, "to move on." 

The Creator never meant that this beautiful land 
should be forever kept as a great hunting ground for the 
Indian to roam in savage bliss, but he intended that it 
should be used. The Indian, having for scores of gener- 
ations failed to develop this land, God asked the Anglo- 
Saxon to take possession and dig out the treasures of 
wheat, corn, cotton, gold and silver, coal and iron, and 
the poor Indian was told "to move on." 

The Negro in Africa sits listlessly in the sunshine of 
barbarous idleness while the same progressive, indomi- 
table, persevering, white man is taking possession of his 
country ; the same edict has gone forth to the native 
African — he is being told "to move on." 



RACIAL GOOD WILL I I 

BEYOND THE COLOR LINE 

Whatever question there may be about the white 
man's part in this situation, there is no doubt about ours. 
Don't let us fool ourselves, but keep in mind the fact 
that the man who owns his home, cultivates his land, and 
lives a decent, self-respecting, useful, and helpful life is 
no problem anywhere. We talk about the "color line." 
You know and I know that the blackest Negro in Ala- 
bama or Mississippi or Africa or anywhere else, who 
puts the same amount of skill and energy into his farming 
gets as large returns for his labor as the whitest Anglo- 
Saxon, The earth yields up her increase as willingly to 
the skill and persuasions of the black as of the white hus- 
bandman. Wind, wave, heat, steam, and electricity are 
absolutely blind forces, see no race distinction, and draw 
no "color line." The world's market does not care and 
it asks no questions about the shade of the hand that pro- 
duces the commodity, but it does insist that it shall be up 
to the world's requirements. 

I thank God for the excellent chance to work that my 
race has in this Southern country ; the Negro in America 
has a real good, healthy job, and I hope he may always 
keep it. I am not particular what he does or where he 
does it, so that he is engaged in honest, useful work. Let 
no one of us ever be ashamed or humiliated when we are 
called workmen ; let us be proud of the distinction. 
Remember always that building a house is quite as impor- 
tant as building a poem ; that the science of cooking is as 
useful to humanity as the science of music ; that the thing 
most to be desired is a harmonious and helpful adaptation 
of all the arts and sciences to the glory of God and good of 
humanity ; that whether we labor with muscle or with 
brain, both need divine inspiration- Let us consecrate 



12 RACIAL GOOD WILL 

our brain and muscle to the highest and noblest service, 
to God and humanity. 

COMMONPLACE VIRTUES 

I wish, first of all, to congratulate you, the members 
of the graduating class, upon the fact that you have come 
thus successfully to the culmination of your career in this 
institution. 1 congratulate you also upon the peculiar 
character of the education you have received and upon the 
efficient and conscientious corps of instructors you have 
had. 

May I briefly remind you of three very commonplace 
virtues that may perhaps help you as you enter a broader, 
and I hope, more useful life. 

Simplicity 

Simplicity is a quality that is hardly likely to be over- 
worked ; certainly it is a very safe and sane side on which 
you may profitably err. It is charged that the educated 
Negro is greatly inclined towards the superficial and showy, 
that he is much given to " putting on airs." Don't be 
afraid or ashamed to be even criticized because of natural 
unaflfectedness, of extreme simplicity in dress, in speech, 
in conduct, and in character. 

It is said that the " Bushman," dressed in the latest 
Parisian fashion, struts proudly through the streets of 
London in the firm belief that in a few short months he 
has compassed all the vast distance between African bar- 
barism and modern civilization ; but, as a matter of fact, 
he has grasped only the foam and froth of civilization with 
out considering the living water upon which they float. 

As I understand this institution, the object has not 
been to make of you mere farmers and mechanics, nor 
yet cooks and dressmakers. It has not even tried to make 



RACIAL GOOD WILL I3 

mere teachers and preachers, although it has accomph'shed 
that task most effectively ; but these vocations, how- 
ever well they may have been learned, are subsidiary to 
the great object that lies at the base of Tuskegee Institute. 
It has tried, and I hope it has succeeded, in making of 
of you men and women with strong, robust, generous, 
courageous, simple, Christ-like characters ; that, my 
friends, is the "bed rock" upon which this institution was 
founded and upon which it stands, and that is the meaning 
of this magnificent gathering, this commencement. This 
school, therefore, stands for real rational simplicity. 

Self-respect 

I want to ask you young people always to keep your 
self-respect. Self-respect does not mean fanning, cring- 
ing, nor truckling. No one detests a fanning, truckling, or 
cringing Negro more than the aristocratic Southern white 
man, and no one respects the honest, law-abiding, straight- 
forward Negro more than the aristocratic Southern gentle- 
man. You will be careful, I am sure, not to confuse self- 
respect with self-conceit; they are sometimes woefully 
mixed, even by educated Negroes ; that is, Negroes who 
have received diplomas from reputable institutions. 

I am not unmindful of the conditions under which we 
live. It is very easy for a race to accept the valuation 
which others set upon it ; to conclude that it is after all 
"good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under the 
foot of man," but there is no excuse for your going through 
the world with a sort of self-depreciatory demeanor as if 
you owed the rest of mankind an apology for existing. 
Remember that you are creatures of God's most perfect 
handiwork and that any lack of appreciation on your part 
is a reflection on the God who made you. Remember 
also that though a Negro, and black, and though belonging 



'4 RACIAL GOOD WILL 

to a backward and somewhat undeveloped race, that God 
meant that you should be as honest, as industrious, as 
law-abiding, as intelligent, as cultivated, as polite, as pure, 
as Christ-like, and as godly as any human being who walks 
on the face of God's green earth. 

Courage 

Tliere is no reason why any Negro should become 
discouraged or morbid. We believe in God ; His provi- 
dence is mysterious and inscrutable ; but His ways are just 
and righteous altogether. Suffering and disappointment 
have always found their place in the divine economy. It 
took four hundred years of slavery in Egypt and a sifting 
process of forty years in the "Wilderness " to teach the 
children of Israel to respect their race and to fit them for 
entrance into the " Promised Land." The black man 
has not as yet thoroughly learned to have the respect for 
his race that is so necessary to the making of a great peo- 
ple. I believe the woes that God has sent him are but 
the fiery furnace through which he is passing, that is sep- 
arating the dross from the pure gold, and is welding the 
Negroes together as a great people for a great purpose. 

There is every reason for optimism and hopefulness. 
The outlook was never more encouraging than today. 
The Negro never had more the respect and confidence of 
his neighbors, black and white, than he has today. 
Neither has he because of his real worth deserved that 
respect more than he does today. Could anybody, amid 
the inspiration of these grounds and buildings, be dis- 
couraged about the future of the Negro? The race prob- 
lem in this country, I repeat, is simply a part of the prob- 
lem of life. It is the adjustment of man's relation to his 
brother, and this adjustment began when Cain slew Abel. 
Race prejudice is as much a fact as the law of gravitation. 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 15 

and it is as foolish to ignore the operation of one as of the 
other. Mournful complaint and arrogant criticism are as 
useless as the crying of a baby against the fury of a great 
wind. The path of moral progress, remember, has never 
taken a straight line, but I believe that unless democracy 
is a failure and Christianity a mockery, it is entirely 
feasible and practicable for the black and white races of 
America to develop side by side, in peace, in harmony, 
and in mutual helpfulness each towards the other ; living 
together as "brothers in Christ without being brothers- 
in-law," each making its contributions to the wealth and 
culture of our beloved country. 

You are soon to join the ranks of the great army of 
graduates who have gone out from this institution. They 
have set the standard very high ; they have rendered 
excellent service for their people, their country, their 
God. Not a white boy or girl in all America has such a 
chance to mould, to fashion, to help, to lead his people as 
is given to you. Not a white boy in all the world has had 
before him as his teacher and constant inspiration so 
unique, so picturesque, so heroic, so devoted, so sublime 
an example of simplicity, of courage, of patient industry, 
of self-sacrificing devotion to duty, as you have had in the 
person at the head of this institution. 



A PRICELESS LEGACY 

For nearly a quarter of a century I have had the 
honor and the pleasure of the acquaintance and confidence 
of your Principal ; I have been with him amid the varying 
circumstances and conditions under which the American 
Negro lives and moves. I have heard him day after day, 
at the point of exhaustion, plead the cause of his race, the 
cause of his country, the cause of the black man, the cause 



l6 RACIAL GOOD WILL 

of the white man. I give this as my deliberate and care- 
ful observation, that I have never heard him say an un- 
charitable, an ungenerous word against white man, against 
Northern man, or against Southern man. 

I have never seen him do or even countenance a 
small or a mean, unkind act. 

I have never known him to be too busy or too tired to 
render service with voice or pen or even means, where a 
human need demanded. 

In all my experience I have never met a more simple, 
patient, sympathetic, judicious, courageous, generous, 
helpful character. 

What a wonderful inspiration this must be to this 
class, what a peerless legacy you have, what a beautiful 
heritage is yours. I thank God for you and for myself, 
that in His infinite wisdom and goodness He has given you 
and the Negro race such a leader, and to this nation such 
a beautiful character. 

I close with these lines from an anonymous poet on 
" The Water Lily ": 

O star on the breast of the river, 

marvel of bloom and grace. 

Did you fall straight down from heaven. 

Out of the sweetest place? 

You are white as the thought of the angel, 

Your heart is steeped in the sun, 

Did you grow in the golden city, 

My pure and radiant one? 

Nay, nay, I fell not out of heaven, 
None gave me my saintly white ; 
It slowly grew in the blackness, 
Down in the dreary night. 
From the ooze of the silent river, 

1 won my glory and grace ; 
White souls fall not, O my poet, 
They rise to the sweetest place. 



THE NEGRO IN INDUSTRY * 

THE Census of 1910 shows that two out of every five 
persons engaged in gainful occupations in the sixteen 
Southern states are Negroes. Of the entire Negro popula- 
tion in those sixteen Southern states, 63 per cent are in 
some form of industrial occupation, while only 47 per 
cent of the white people are thus engaged. Of all the 
Negroes who are engaged in industrial activities 60 per 
cent are agricultural workers. The large majority of in- 
dustrial workers in the South are on the land ; and this is 
especially hopeful so far as the Negro is concerned. It is 
also significant that the number of Negroes engaged as 
agricultural laborers is about the same as it was fifty years 
ago, though the Negro population has increased nearly 150 
per cent during that period. Something like a million 
Negroes have developed from agricultural laborers to 
farmers, there being, according to the Census of 1910, 
something like 890,000 in this class. 

After all of the efforts which have been made to induce 
foreign immigrants to settle in the South, less than five 
per cent have so far availed themselves of the opportunity 
offered, and a large portion of that five per cent has set- 
tled in the cities of the South. The Negro must be very 
largely depended upon to supply all the demands for labor 
in agricultural as well as domestic lines. According to 
reliable statistics, the Negro has not only hitherto done this 
more or less acceptably, but he has also gone rapidly into 
the fields of skilled and semi-skilled laborers. He is, 
therefore, an indisputable factor in the present and future 
development of our Southern states. 

* An address delivered before the Southern Sociological Congress in Memphis, Tenn., 
May 9, 1914 



1 8 RACIAL GOOD WILL 

One reasonably familar with the situation does not 
doubt that the South, within the next few decades, be- 
cause of its splendid soil and climate, its abundant rainfall, 
its special adaptation to the raising of cotton, its new and 
growing spirit of enterprise which demands modern scien- 
tific methods of agriculture, will become one of the most 
important agricultural sections of the nation and the world. 
It is, therefore, not only important that labor and capital 
should work in harmony, but it is even more important 
that there should be inter-racial sympathy and co-operation 
along all lines of economic and civic endeavor. 

NEFD OF TRAINED WORKERS 

Thoughtful Negroes as well as thoughtful white men 
are agreed that the South offers the largest opportunity 
for the Negro, economically, socially, and morally. It is also 
agreed by thoughtful people, black and white, that the 
rural districts in the South offer the greatest opportunity 
for the masses of colored people. It is fair to assume, then, 

That, for the present at least, the South cannot de- 
pend on foreign immigrants for its farm operatives, its 
domestic and personal service, or its unskilled and semi- 
skilled labor; 

That it must depend on the Negro for the present and 
also the very distant future to recruit the ranks of this 
form of labor ; 

That, if the Negro is to constitute the mass of indus- 
trial operatives of the South, it is imperative for the com- 
mon good that there should be sympathetic co-operation 
with the white workers engaged in similar forms of in- 
dustry ; 

That every effort should be exerted on the part of the 
South to make these laborers, black and white, more re- 
liable, more skillful, and more efficient ; 



RACIAL GOOD WILL IQ 

That the laborer can be kept efficient and skillful only 
as his environment is wholesome and strengthening and 
not weakening and demoralizing ; 

That it is the duty of every patriotic Southerner to 
use every possible means for the practical, sympathetic 
training of these workers and their children through a 
thorough, well-regulated school system. 

It is frequently asserted by careless and thoughtless 
speakers and writers that all Negroes are lazy, shiftless, 
and inefficient; but the people who say this are not only 
out of accord with the facts of the case, but they often do 
not believe what they themselves are saying. 

What they mean to say is that some Negroes in every 
community are lazy, shiftless, and inefficient ; but in practi- 
cally every district where Negroes are employed, whether 
as farm laborers or as mechanical laborers, the verdict 
is that the large majority of Negro workers are reliable, 
many of them are skillful and very efficient, and not a few 
are almost indispensable. There are very few places in 
the South where the employer would be willing to dis- 
pense with the services of his Negro employes. 

The South has made marvelous strides in industries 
within the past forty years, but this would have been well- 
nigh impossible without its docile, cheerful, and willing 
Negro population. Notwithstanding the much discouraging 
talk and the more discouraging, not to say unfair and un- 
just legislation, there cannot be found, even where the 
ruling and the laboring classes are both of the same race, 
as much real, helpful sympathy and co-operation as exist 
at the present time between the Negro and the Southern 
white man. The relationship is one that is difficult to de- 
fine, yet it is no less real. There are some individual white 
men who like individual Negroes, though they may think 
they hate the race. Individual white men will do any 



20 RACIAL GOOD WILL 

reasonable thing to help individual Negroes. Yet a single 
white man, here and there, may say any unreasonable 
thing against the Negro race. There are Negroes who 
are equally as inconsistent in their feelings and expres- 
sions regarding the white race. 

The white South, for its own self-interest, if for no 
other reason, should strive to make the individual rela- 
tionship which exists between the races a more general 
relationship, and the large mass of Negro workers con- 
tented and happy. It should encourage Negroes to live on 
the farm and to buy up the waste and undeveloped lands 
of the South; it should offer every possible inducement for 
Negroes to remain in the South and on the land, where 
they can rear their children amid physical and moral sur- 
roundings conducive to their highest development and 
greater usefulness to themselves and to the state. 

VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE AND CONFIDENCE 

The two races in the South truly deserve to be con- 
gratulated, the Negro, because, notwithstanding all of the 
laws and all of the discussions regarding the various forms 
of circumscription and segregation, he has not become 
embittered and has not grown to hate the white race ; and 
the white people, because, in spite of all that has been said 
and done, they have not lost confidence in and respect for 
and desire to help the Negro. 

Few white people know the Negro's real feeling on 
the question of segregation. The Negro rarely discusses 
this question frankly, for the reason that he does not think 
that because he is black he is cursed and that the Creator 
has limited his possibilities so that he is unfit for associa- 
tion with other human beings. But, as a matter of fact, 
ninety-nine per cent, I should say, of the Negro race, if 
they should tell what they really feel, would say that they 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 21 

have no desire to be with white people because they are 
white; that, so far as enforced segregation and separation 
are concerned, they are entirely in accord with it, not be- 
cause of unfitness but because of racial incompatibility. 
One can observe this attitude in every Southern com- 
munity and in most Northern communities where there is 
any considerable number of Negroes. 

In Southern communities, long before segregation was 
ever spoken of, there were Negro sections in almost all 
towns.where the Negro lived happily, and there was practi- 
cally no trouble or feeling of unpleasantness because of it. 
The only persons who presumed to disregard the unwrit- 
ten law were certain white men who opened grocery 
stores, drygoods stores, and bar rooms which very fre- 
quently carried with them the lowest and most subtle sort 
of vices and degradation which would not be tolerated in 
white residential sections. What is true in urban com- 
munities is very much the same in rural communities. 
There were many counties in Virginia and in other states 
also where one could travel for miles on land owned by 
colored people, and this happened without any law forcing 
white and colored people to separate. 

The Negro enjoys the companionship of his race and 
never loses a chance to be with them, everything else be- 
ing equal. Like every other human being, he enjoys 
being with his friends whether they are black or white. 
But because a few Negroes here and there in the cities 
and in the country have bought property alongside of 
white people ; because the Negro traveling on the railroad 
wishes to ride in the Pullman car ; because at the railroad 
station he applies at the only restaurant for a meal ; be- 
cause a few Negroes here and there go to Northern white 
universities ; and because the Negro protests against the 
" jim crow " car (which almost invariably means inferior 



22 RACIAL GOOD WILL 

accommodations), and the separation on street cars, the 
feeling in the mind of the average white person is, per- 
haps, that the Negro wants to be white and that he wants 
to be with white people because they are white. There 
is absolutely no foundation in fact for this feeling. 

NEED OF MORE PROTECTION 

The Negro has long since learned that property along- 
side of white people in the cities and towns is more valu- 
able ; that his wife and children have more protection ; 
that the streets are better and cleaner ; and that he gets 
better fire protection, greater police protection ; and that 
for such a section there are more adequate sanitary arrange- 
ments. The Negro has discovered that if his land adjoins 
a white man's land the county roads are better cared for. 
The roads in the Negro sections, especially where the 
county roads are infrequently used by white people, as 
is often the case, are generally neglected, and it is often 
difficult to get the road master to pay any attention to that 
section of the public highway. In many cases it is never 
touched. The fence and stock laws are much more rigidly 
enforced by county officials and more carefully observed 
by both black and white wherever white people's property 
is concerned. 

The truth is simply this. The white people are the 
ruling, controlling, dominating, directing element of this 
country, and they have the best of everything— the best 
parts of the cities, the best hotels and restaurants, the best 
cars, and as a rule, the best schools, colleges, and univer- 
sities. When a Negro shows an inclination to be with 
white people, it is not because he wants to be with white 
people as such, but because he wants to get the best as 
to land, position, education, comforts, conveniences, and 
protection. 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 23 

It is self-evident that the Negro has practically no 
share in the making or the execution of the laws. He 
knows when he is segregated that underneath the segrega- 
tion is the idea that he is inferior and unfit for association 
with decent people of any other race. He knows that 
in his section of the city the streets are not paved ; that 
criminals of his own race and often of other races are al- 
lowed to run at large and prey on the ignorant and inno- 
cent ; that in his section the health boards are not so par- 
ticular as they should be regarding sanitary surroundings; 
that street sweepers, who are often white, give little or no 
attention to sections where Negroes live ; and that Negro 
sections, because they are Negro sections, are almost in- 
variably neglected by city as well as county officials. 

WHAT SEPARATION HAS MEANT 

Separation, so far as I have been able to observe, has 
never meant equal treatment or equal accommodations on 
railroads or steamboats, in restaurants, on street cars, or 
anywhere else. 

Sometimes an effort has been made to make the public 
service equal for both races, but those who have the su- 
pervision of it, because of lack of interest, or lack of sym- 
pathy, or perhaps lack of appreciation of the necessity of 
careful supervision, have allowed the accommodations to 
degenerate into places inferior and, in most cases, abso- 
lutely unfit for human beings of any race. In many cases, 
these places are as menacing to the health and lives of the 
white race as they are demoralizing and degrading, as well 
as menacing, to the health and lives of the colored people. 

The Southern conscience ought to be aroused to the 
point of action where the white South will demand abso- 
lutely equal accommodations for both races in all places 



24 RACIAL GOOD WILL 

where there is local segregation. In many places, if there 
were Negro constables, magistrates, and policemen in 
Negro sections, there would be far less criminality on the 
part of Negroes, because these officials would ferret it 
out and locate the vicious criminals of their race. They 
would, nine times out of ten, see that the offender was 
brought to justice. Negro street cleaners would be more 
zealous in their duties in their own sections. The crim- 
inality of the South, as far as the Negro is concerned, 
would be reduced fifty per cent if the authorities would call 
colored men into service as constables and policemen. 
The white officers would, in this case, receive a surpris- 
ing amount of co-operation. 

No leader, either black or white, can give skillful, 
efficient, conscientious service when he is surrounded day 
and night by all that tends to lower his health, distort his 
mind, weaken his morals, embitter his spirit, and shake 
his faith in his fellow-men. The South's growth can come 
only when its laboring class is well housed, well fed, and 
surrounded by all that tends to make it strong mentally, 
morally, and physically. Under the system of segregation 
which is at present being agitated and practiced in many 
quarters, it is impossible for the Negro to grow normally, 
either in his physical, mental, or moral life. To that ex- 
tent he is inefficient and unsatisfactory as a laborer. I 
much fear he will grow more so. 

JUDGING A RACE BY ONE CLASS 

The next largest group of Negro industrial workers, 
according to the Census of 1910, are the 1,324,150 of Ne- 
groes who are engaged in domestic and personal service. 
These have little personal contact and almost nothing in 
common, so far as actual occupation is concerned, with a 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 2 5 

similar though very much smaller group of white people. 
Nevertheless, because of the very intimate relationship 
which they sustain toward the dominant and law-making 
element, they are in many ways a most important factor in 
inter-racial problems. These domestic and personal-service 
workers have been for more than a generation very largely 
the " ministers-extraordinary and plenipotentiaries of 
the Negro race at the court of Southern white public 
opinion." Their indiflference, their laziness, their shiftless- 
ness, their carelessness, their inefficiency, their immorality 
and criminality, have played no inconsiderable part in 
shaping the mental attitude of most Southern white people 
towards the Negro. Their interpretation of the sermons, 
lectures, lawyers' briefs, physicians' prescriptions, the 
conduct, character, feelings, sentiments, and longings of 
all the Negroes in the South, educated and otherwise, has 
been the infallible foundation upon which the reputation 
of the whole Negro race, to a very large extent, has been 
based. 

Not all of this class are inefl&cient, shiftless, or crim- 
inal ; but the domestic- and personal-service element in 
any race, important as it is that they be efficient and sat- 
isfactory and able to hold their jobs, are not the best rep- 
resentatives of a race of people. They are apt to mis- 
interpret and misrepresent the intelligent, well-mean- 
ing, property-owning, and progressive class. It is unfair 
to the white race that it should shape its opinion of the 
entire Negro race by the Negro cook or butler who may 
or may not be satisfactory. It is even more unfair to the 
Negro that the decision as to his morality, his intelligence, 
his ability, and his industrial efficiency should be deter- 
mined merely by this element. 



26 RACIAL GOOD WILL 



PROTECTION OF NEGRO WOMEN 



A great difficulty that faces Negro girls who are en- 
gaged in domestic service is the lack of attention and care 
on the part of their employers. This has had more to do 
with the moral degradation of Negro women than any other 
single phase of Southern life. Little or no interest is taken 
in these girls so long as they attend to their duties. Where 
they go, with whom they associate, the life they live, the 
environment in which they spend their off hours — these 
facts receive little or no consideration. This is perhaps 
natural, but it is certainly unfair, not only to the Negro 
domestic servant, but also to the white employer of the 
Negro servant. What is worse, it has made many a Negro 
woman ashamed of her job. 

Many well-meaning white people take it for granted 
that the Negro will be lazy, dishonest, and immoral. That 
very attitude, benevolent as it is, perhaps, is in itself most 
unfortunate and dangerous. It is most unfortunate for the 
Negro that the white man should set for him a lower 
standard, either industrially, morally, or intellectually, 
than for himself, and should too easily offer a sort of half 
apology for Negro weaknesses, failures, and inefficiencies. 

EDUCATION THE SOLUTION 

This leads me to emphasize the very great necessity 
of education for the Negro. There has been much crit- 
icism and some ridicule of educated Negroes, by per- 
haps well-meaning people. But, after all is said and done, 
the most successful, the most reliable, and the most influ- 
ential element in the Negro race, as in every race, is the 
educated class — the men and women who have done most 
to cement cordial and sympathetic relations between the 
races ; who have had the greatest influence for caution 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 2/ 

and conservatism upon the reckless, radical Negroes ; 
who have been most patient and most persistent in their 
efforts to fit the whole Negro race for freedom and citizen- 
ship, in the broadest sense of the words, by practical, 
Christian education and by sane, wholesome advice. 

It seems to me that the best means of cementing a more 
cordial, sympathetic, and helpful relationship between the 
two races is thorough, systematic training, and practical 
education for both races, which means loyalty and efi5- 
ciency, and especially for the more backward of the 
two races— the Negro. Our struggle, then, to bring all 
the laborers of the South to the point where they can 
make of this Southland, where cotton still remains the 
economic king, what it should eventually become, must 
be, first, to feed, clothe, and house them properly. For 
this they must be trained intellectually, morally, and 
spiritually; and for this training the white people, the direct- 
ing class, must see that all labor, black as well as white, 
has full and complete opportunity to get the very best, 
broadest, deepest, and highest that the Creator has given 
to all mankind. 

I plead for the continued co-operation and backing of 
the South in the efforts and achievements of such second- 
ary and higher educational institutions as Hampton, Tus- 
kegee, Howard, Atlanta, Fisk, and Virginia Union Uni- 
versity, with a dozen other worthy institutions, not only for 
the training they give the Negro, but also for what this train- 
ing has meant to the South and to the nation. It is only 
by broadening his horizon, enlarging his vision, increasing 
his ambition, deepening his pride in himself and in his 
race, and thereby increasing his respect for himself and 
otherselves, that the Negro will be made truly efficient— a 
permanent benefit to himself, to his race, and to his coun- 
try. And this should be the Christian duty and patriotic 
obligation of every true citizen, black and white alike. 



SIGNS OF GO-OPERATION* 

AT a meeting held recently in Virginia an old colored 
preacher in opening the service prayed thus: "O 
God of all races, will you please, Sir, come in and take 
charge of de min's of all dese yere white people and fix 
dem so dat dey'll know and understan' dat all of us col- 
ored folks is not lazy, dirty, dishones', an' no 'count ; and 
help dem. Lord, to see dat most of us is prayin', workin', 
and strivin', to get some land, some houses, and some 
ed'cation for ourselves an' our chillun, an' get true 'ligion 
an' dat mos' every Negro in Northampton County is, 
doin' his lebel bes' to make frien's an' get along wid de 
white folks. Help dese yere white folks, O Lord, to 
understan' dis thing. Lord, while you is takin' charge of 
de min's of dese white people, don' pass by de colored 
folks, for dey is not perfec'— dey needs you as much as 
de white folks does. Open de Negro's blin' eyes dat he 
may see dat all of de white folks is not mean an' dishones' 
an' prejudice' ag'inst the colored folks, dat dere is hones', 
hard-workin', jus', an' God-fearin' white folks in dis yere 
community who is tryin' de bes' dey know how, wid de 
circumstances ag'inst dem, to be fair in dere dealin's 
wid de colored folks, an' help dem to be 'spectable men 
an' women. Help us, Lord, black an' white, to under- 
stan' each other more eve'y day." 

The prayer of this old colored man expresses, in a 
crude but effective fashion, the feeling and desire of the 
best Negroes and the best white people of the South. 
The sentiment of this prayer is becoming more and more 
universal, and it is influencing as never before the best 

*An ■ddreii delivered before the Negro Chriitian Studenti' Convention held in 
Atlanta. May 6-10. 1914 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 29 

thought and highest aspirations of our Southern people. 
This, then, is the first fundamental sign of growing co-op- 
eration in our Southland. One who is reasonably familiar 
with Southern conditions cannot but see on every hand 
unmistakable evidences that the two races are growing 
more and more to understand and sympathize with each 
other in the common life which they now lead and must 
of necessity continue to lead. 

It is comparatively easy for a person to become dis- 
couraged regarding the situation, especially if he is gov- 
erned by the reports which he sees in the average daily 
paper. There seems to be a popular desire, on the part of 
press dispatches, to emphasize the unsavory side of Negro 
life. 

How often one sees in a paper — front page, first col- 
umn—in glaring headlines, a report of some crime alleged 
to have been committed by a black man ; whereas, in the 
very same paper, on the last page, and often in a most 
insignificant place on that page, with very modest head- 
lines, one finds a report of a white man charged with the 
same sort of crime ! If there is a misunderstanding be- 
tween black and white people in any community, often in 
cases where there are less than a half-dozen in the dis- 
turbance, the papers will report a "race riot" and give the 
impression that practically all the Negroes and white 
people in the community are up in arms against each 
other. 

This sort of propaganda, which has been indulged in 
for several decades and with increasing exaggeration, can- 
not but prejudice many people of both races against the 
Negro, and cause the casual observer to wonder if it is 
possible after all for the black and white races, whom 
God in His infinite wisdom and goodness has seen fit in 
His own way to place side by side in large numbers on 



30 RACIAL GOOD WILL 

Southern soil, to live helpfully and harmoniously together. 
But there is no real reason for discouragement. The 
apparent hostility is more or less superficial and far from 
the actual facts of the situation, for, on sober second thought, 
there come to mind the rank and file of the Negro race— 
the law-abiding citizens who keep out of courts and out of 
the papers ; the earnest, thoughtful, growing numbers who 
are working side by side with the best white people for 
the solution of the race problem. 

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS 

Immediately after the war there was naturally a cer- 
tain sort of paternal relation that existed between the white 
man and the Negro, but this was of rather a patronizing 
sort. This relationship exists even now to some extent, 
but it cannot long continue. There must come a different 
and more lasting, and, in the long run, a more wholesome 
relationship. The younger generations of the white and 
black races have now come on the stage of action. Their 
dealings are less cordial and less patronizing, and are more 
cold and businesslike. The Negro stands on his manhood. 
Few favors are asked except such as may be reduced to a 
dollars-and-cents basis. 

There was developed during the days of slavery a 
spirit of suspicion on the part of the Negro against white 
people which the reconstruction period did not by any 
means lessen, and which has hampered the Negro, perhaps, 
more than it has the white man. This the Negro is rapidly 
outliving, and that is encouraging. Notwithstanding all 
that has been said against the Negro from the press and 
platform, the real situation was never more hopeful and 
encouraging than it is at present. Even the casual ob- 
server must see that there is growing a spirit of real co- 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 3^ 

operation and sympathy between the races, and that never 
before has there been a more earnest and sincere effort 
on the part of both races for mutual help and co-operation. 
There is a growing and genuinely honest disposition on the 
part of Negroes everywhere to seek the advice as well 
as the assistance and co-operation of white people in every 
movement for the uplift of the Negroes. There is an 
increasingly strong feeling on the part of Negro laborers 
and mechanics for unity and co-operation with similar 
groups of white artisans, and the white unions are seeing 
more and more the necessity for a closer union of the 
various classes of skilled workers. This feeling will con- 
tinue to grow as men become better trained, better 
educated, and better Christians. 

EDUCATIONAL CO-OPERATION 

In educational matters there is also growing sym- 
pathy and co-operation between whites and blacks. 
The Negro is calling on school officials for a fair and 
equitable distribution of school funds. He is asking for 
better schools, longer terms, better pay for teachers, and 
better equipment; in many cases the Negroes, out of their 
own earnings, are buying land for the schools and often 
putting up the schoolhouses, sometimes supplementing 
the pay of the teacher, this generally being done with the 
advice and approval of the local school officials, who are 
making appropriations for school purposes with a liber- 
ality such as was never before witnessed. 

Hampton Institute, through its Principal, Dr. Hollis 
B. Frissell, and its trustees, notably the late Robert G. 
Ogden, and through the institutions that have grown out 
of Hampton, has done more than perhaps any other single 
institution in making possible the sort of co-operation that 



3- RACIAI, GOOD WILL 

counts for most in the development of the two races here 
in the South. Hampton Institute has established a plat- 
form upon which Northern men, Southern men, black 
men, and white men can work together for the good of 
humanity and the glory of God. Men and women from 
more spheres of life, of more creeds and colors, are con- 
stantly meeting at Hampton for the discussion of vital 
questions and inspiration for larger work than in any other 
place, perhaps, in America. 

Dr. Booker T. Washington has done more than any 
other single man to bring the colored people to realize 
the wisdom and absolute necessity of calling on the white 
people for advice and aid, and I need not say that the re- 
sponse in most cases has been helpful and gratifying ; 
this attitude on the part of colored people has encouraged 
the white people to take more interest in what is going on 
among colored people in almost every line of endeavor. 

We all know of the work of the Jeanes Board, through 
which Dr. James H. Dillard has accomplished suqh 
splendid service for God and humanity ; and we all know 
also of the work of the state supervisors of rural schools, 
of whom Mr. Jackson Davis was the pioneer. These two 
agencies are not only linking together the common rural 
schools in the communities in which they are at work, but 
are doing what is to me more important — they are linking 
the two races together on the ground of common brother- 
hood,common needs, and common sympathy, in the cities 
as well as in the country. Here is a great forward move- 
ment toward the co-operation of the races. In Savannah» 
for example, organizations like the National Negro Busi- 
ness League arc co-operating with the white people for 
a greater and better city The same is true in Nashville, 
as well as here in Atlanta and in other Southern cities. 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 33 

KNOWING AND WINNING THE SOUTH 

Dr. Washington, usually under the auspices of the 
National Negro Business League, with other prominent 
colored men, has made what he calls "educational tours" 
through almost all of the Southern states, where thousands 
of people, white and black, have gathered to listen to him. 
These thousands have received from the distinguished 
Negro leader frank, yet sane, advice as to the best methods 
of real co-operation and a more helpful relationship. These 
addresses have had as cordial a response from white as 
from black people. It would be difficult to estimate the 
value of such trips in cementing more cordial, sympathic 
feeling between the two races in these states. 

The unstinted thanks of the Negroes of the South are 
due Dr. James H. Dillard, who brought into being, at the 
right time, the University Commission on Race Questions, 
a commission composed of representatives of all the South- 
ern state universities— men who, without sentiment, are 
getting at the real facts regarding the Negro, with a view 
to helping, not merely the Negro, but the white South and 
the nation as well. The Negro is perfectly willing to be 
judged on his merits by unbiased men, especially when 
they have before them the actual facts. 

In Memphis there was recently held what was in some 
ways the most remarkable gathering I have ever wit- 
nessed. There came together a large body of Southern 
men representing all phases of Southern life, and an equally 
interesting and representative body of Negroes. These 
men expressed frankly, dispassionately, and in a kindly 
way their views on the race situation, offering sane, helpful 
suggestions as to adequate remedies therefor. Is it not a 
hopeful sign when black men and white men can thus 
counsel together on common problems ? 



34 RACIAL GOOD WILL 

CO-OPERATION AMONG WOMEN 

Our Negro women have shown consummate wisdom 
and tact in securing the co-operation and help of leading 
white women in their civic movements. The Women's 
Civic League of Baltimore, and all of our Virginia move- 
ments have been and are now headed by the most promi- 
nent and aristocratic white women. And here in Atlanta, 
Mrs. John Hope could not have accomplished what she 
has so successfully achieved had she not asked the help 
and co-operation of the white women of the city. 

The fact that the Negroes are themselves becoming 
better organized and are willing to accept the advice and 
leadership of their own race for racial betterment and civic 
improvement, makes it all the easier for the leaders of 
these organizations to throw the weight of their influence 
on the side of sane co-operation with the best element 
of our Southern white people. Few private schools are 
started in any community without the Negroes asking cer- 
tain of the leading white people to become members of 
the board of trustees. If they do not wish to make them 
real trustees, which means owners of the property, they 
will devise some kind of an advisory board, so as to link 
white people to the movement, and thus secure their ad- 
vice and counsel, perhaps their financial assistance, and 
often their influence with the county school officials. 

BUSINESS CO-OPERATION 

There are in the South today about seventy Negro 
banks owned, controlled, and operated by Negroes, also 
numerous building and loan associations In many of these 
banks the presidents or cashiers of the white banks have 
not only given advice to their Negro competitors as to the 
best methods of banking, but have opened up their first 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 35 

books and started them off, in many places overlooking 
their methods and work until the Negro banks could get on 
their feet. Only recently a Negro bank in Richmond 
came near having a "run" on it because of some erroneous 
report that was circulated in the community to the effect 
that the bank was in trouble, and several of the leading 
white banking institutions, through their presidents, told 
the Negro bank to pay all claims promptly, and that they 
would furnish the necessary money if it did not have 
the available cash. These banks knew that the Negro bank 
was absolutely safe and solid and they had absolute faith 
in the honesty and integrity of its black president. In 
almost every community the Negro and white business 
men are on terms of harmony and co-operation, loaning 
and borrowing and crediting as if both were white or both 
were black. This spirit of business co-operation must and 
certainly will continue to grow. 

CO-OPERATION FOR BETTER HEALTH 

It is perhaps along lines of health and sanitation that 
one finds the heartiest co-operation between the white and 
colored people. It is quite as important for white people 
that Negroes should be clean and healthy, physically, 
mentally, and morally, as it is for colored people. White 
people see and understand this and are willing and glad to 
lend assistance and to co-operate as perhaps in no other 
movement. Disease is common to all, and though germi- 
nated in the Negro cabin, is very apt to find its way to the 
white mansion. Disease, like vice and crime, knows no 
color line. As a result of the very important meeting re- 
cently held in the city of New Orleans to start a health 
campaign throughout the South, the white people are 
urging the Negroes to enter into this movement and have 
met with a very general response. 



36 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 



THE NEGRO ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 



There grew out of the Hampton Negro Conference a 
movement which we have called the Negro Organization 
Society of Virginia. This movement has for its object the 
federation of all existing organizations in the State of Vir- 
ginia of whatever kind or character, whether religious, be- 
nevolent, or secret societies, social orbusiness conventions, 
farmers' conferences, or what not, for the common purpose 
of general improvement of conditions among Negroes 
throughout the Old Dominion. Its motto is, "Better 
schools, better health, better homes, better farms" among 
colored people. The Negro Organization Society seems 
to have federated about all of these organizations, for 
never in the history of the race has any movement 
taken hold of the various phases of Negro activity as this 
movement has done; and though it is only about three years 
old, it has inspired the erection of some twenty-five graded 
schools in the state, to say nothing of improving the 
equipment and surroundings of two score more. 

We have just closed what we call in Virginia a "clean- 
up week." A year ago we had a "clean-up day," but we 
made it a clean-up week this year for the reason that it 
was not convenient in many localities in the state, because 
of storms, etc., to clean up on the day appointed. We 
asked the State Board of Health, as well as the county 
boards, for their co-operation and help. We prepared a 
special bulletin giving instructions in simple language that 
could easily be understood by Cc/lored people, as to the 
best methods of preserving their health, which we call the 
"Negro Health Handbook." The State Board of Health 
published, at no expense to the Organization Society, 
about thirty thousand of these books, which were put into 
the hands of the school-teachers and preachers as well as 



pD 1.0.4 



RACIAL GOOD WILL 37 

Other Negro leaders throughout the state; and special ser- 
mons and health talks and lectures were delivered 
throughout Virginia. We asked the white people who 
employed colored people to excuse their employes and 
encourage them as far as possible to clean up their premises; 
and while we have not the facts for the present year, we 
know that last year 130,000 people devoted a day to a 
general cleaning up of their premises, disposing of rubbish, 
whitewashing their houses, outhouses, and fences, and 
destroying breeding places for flies and mosquitoes. The 
most significant thing accomplished in this healthjmovement 
is that we got absolutely the co-operation and the backing 
of the leading papers and leading white people of Virginia. 
The new " Handbook " has just been published and 
forty thousand copies distributed, with results even more 
far-reaching than those of a year ago. 

Last November, in Richmond, six thousand people 
gathered to hear the reports of the year's work of this 
society. Something like a thousand of these were white 
and they represented the leading people of the City of 
Richmond and the State of Virginia. There were present 
and on the platform, the Governor of the State, the Presi- 
dent of the Richmond Medical College, the Principal of 
Hampton Institute, and many leading Negroes, among 
them Mrs. Maggie L. Walker, and such men as Dr. 
Charles S. Morris and Dr. Booker T. Washington. Mrs. B. 
B. Munford, one of the leading white ladies of Virginia 
and president of the Virginia Co-operative Education 
Association, was asked to speak on the subject "What white 
people can do to help colored people." Mrs. Munford 
opened her address with these words: "The best way," 
she said, "for white people to help colored people is for 
white people to believe in colored people." In my opin- 
ion the best way for colored people to help white people 



3^ RACIAL GOOD WILL 

is for colored people to believe in white people. 
It seems to me, then, that if we live up to the spirit of 
the colored minister whom I quoted in the beginning of 
my talk, and accept the equally sincere and earnest advice 
of Mrs. Munford, we shall have a clue to the maze of 
race prejudice and race misunderstanding, and a key to 
the door of Christian co-operation and brotherhood, which 
is the spirit and purpose of this Negro Students' Christian 
Federation. 





















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